Unseen Mark Twain fairytale to be published in fall

PanARMENIAN.Net - A 16-page note about a fairytale told to Mark Twain’s daughters is to be published this year, on the 150th anniversary of the Huckleberry Finn author’s first book, The Guardian reports.

The Purloining of Prince Oleomargarine is based on handwritten notes by Twain of a story told to his young daughters one night in Paris in 1879. In the story, a young boy who can talk to animals recruits some creatures to help him save a kidnapped prince.

The long-lost tale has been completed and illustrated by author and illustrator team Philip and Erin Stead. Publisher Doubleday said the tale explores themes of charity, kindness and bravery in the face of tyranny, with sharply drawn satire and touching pathos.

A scholar spotted the story in 2011 among archive materials when he visited the Mark Twain Papers and Project at the University of California at Berkeley.

Although Twain told his young daughters countless bedtime stories, made up on the spot as they requested them, it is believed that this was the only time he recorded one.

Frances Gilbert, associate publishing director at Random House Books for young readers, who edited the book, said: “To publish a new Twain story is an incredible literary event. When I first got the chance to read this unpublished story, I couldn’t believe what I was holding.”

The book will be published on 26 September, which coincides with the 150th anniversary of the publication of his first book: the 1867 short-story collection The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County and Other Sketches.

Philip and Erin Stead have already completed the manuscript, which the publisher said would be framed as “told to me by my friend, Mark Twain”. The award-winning duo are among the best-known names in US children’s writing, behind books like A Sick Day for Amos McGee.

Publication of rediscovered stories by the giants of children’s literature has become one of the nicest little earners of recent publishing history.

Last year, Beatrix Potter’s The Tale of Kitty-in-Boots shot to the top of Amazon’s book charts as soon as the discovery was announced, eight months before its publication, becoming a centrepiece of celebrations of the 150th anniversary of Potter’s birth.

Discovered by publisher Jo Hanks in the V&A archive, the long-lost story about “a well-behaved prime black Kitty cat, who leads rather a double life”, featured some of the author’s most beloved characters, including Mr Tod, Mrs Tiggy-Winkle, Tabitha Twitchit as well as an “older, slower and portlier” version of Peter Rabbit.